Esta introdução descreve os mais importantes dados biográficos da vida e da obra do físico teórico austríaco Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906). As principais contribuições científicas de Boltzmann situam-se nos domínios da teoria cinética dos gases e mecânica estatística, da qual ele foi um dos fundadores. A tese de que as teorias científicas são representações dos fenômenos naturais é encontrada em todos os artigos de Boltzmann. No verbete "modelo", ela é apresentada de modo mais organizado, o que o torna uma peça fundamental (...) para a compreensão do pensamento filosófico do físico austríaco. O verbete, publicado na famosa enciclopédia Britannica, foi escrito para o público em geral. Ainda assim, Boltzmann não se eximiu de tomar partido em favor do uso de modelos. Estes últimos não apenas seriam inevitáveis, mas necessários, uma vez que tornavam possível o aperfeiçoamento contínuo da ciência. This introduction describes the most important biographical details of the life and work of the Austrian theoretical physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906). The main scientific contributions of Boltzmann can be found in areas such as the kinetic theory of gases and statistical mechanics, of which he was one of the co-founders. The thesis that scientific theories are representations of natural phenomena is found in all philosophical articles by Boltzmann. In the entry "model", published in the celebrated Encyclopedia Britannica, the thesis is presented in a more organized way, making it the keystone to understand the philosophical thought of the Austrian physicist. Although the entry was written for the general public, in it Boltzmann did not refrain from taking sides as far as the use of models is concerned. According to him, the latter would not only be inevitable, but in fact necessary, since they would made possible the continuous improvement of science. (shrink)

In the first edition of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin apologized for not correctly referencing all the works cited in his magnum opus. More than 150 years later we have catalogued these citations and analyzed the resultant data. Looking for a complete selection of collaborators, a flexible interpretation of the term citation was necessary; we define it as any reference made to a third party, independently of its form or function. Following the same idea, the sixth edition of the (...) Origin, originally published in 1872 and reprinted with minor additions and corrections in 1876, was chosen for the research because it represents the end of a long debate between Darwin and his peers. It naturally is the edition with the greatest number of citations and collaborators. Through a diverse theoretical analysis, we aim to present a new perspective for the study of the Origin of Species: a bibliographic approach that provides the tools needed to understand the history of the book as a physical and cultural object. Bibliometrics provides a theory of citations as well as a quantitative analysis; science studies highlights the profound social aspects of science in the making. The analysis resulted in 639 citations to 298 collaborators and provided a new perspective of the rhetorical structure of the Origin, even though these results are only the tip of the iceberg of the potential of all the data gathered in this study. (shrink)